U.K customers and Delivery- Final Thoughts

[pcelt]

This is not usual news for many UK purchasers but I have just collected my Steelbox after a 31 day delay and a demand for £17.90p (£9 90p VAT and £8 Post Office "handling" bill)

There has been a long thread of comment and discussion re this issue and I dont intend to protract it beyond this mail. But I would like to terminate it with 3 final comments, one to the UK Border Agency, one to the Post Office and one to Steve and Battlefront.

UK Border Agency

1)What is fair and just about a system where one group of customers receive their import free of any charge and another similar group of customers randomly selected are arbitrarily charged VAT

And also how can it be justified to take 20-30 days just to impose the charge before any delivery or information to those customers.

Post Office

2)The "handling" charge ,I was told, was made because the Post Office paid the VAT and then had to reclaim it from us. But my point would be that we did not instruct the PO to pay our VAT --if we had been charged the VAT directly we could have paid it directly.

Steve and Battlefront

3) Finally, I should just like to make a deepfelt plea that the future CMBN modules are made available for European purchasers at the outset from Germany and not from America only.We really couldnt go through all this hassle,expense and unfairness re every new module.

Thanks in hope....

[Blackcat]

All valid points, though why people are annoyed to be charged taxes and fees on an import is beyond me. I look at it the otherway and rejoice that some got away with it. Everyone should have paid the tax, some didn't, that is a cause for celebration.

If the game was shipped from Germany then it would be subject to VAT at the German rate and presumably there are costs involved in setting up and running the German operation. The fees and taxes would still be there just hidden from us.

The other cause for celebration is that even the bureaucrats in Brussels haven't worked out a way of taxing downloads yet (thanks to our American cousins telling them to feck off when they tried few years ago). So it is in fact our choice whether we chose to pay these impositions in the first place.

[Doug Williams]

The other cause for celebration is that even the bureaucrats in Brussels haven't worked out a way of taxing downloads yet (thanks to our American cousins telling them to feck off when they tried few years ago). So it is in fact our choice whether we chose to pay these impositions in the first place.

Yea, we're good at that, if not much else. ;-)

But seriously, I'm sure our own government is working on a way to tax downloads even as I type this. In the meantime, as Blackcat pointed out, unless you absolutely must have a box to sit on your shelves, just purchase the downloads in the future. You can burn your own disk.

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

The other cause for celebration is that even the bureaucrats in Brussels haven't worked out a way of taxing downloads yet...

This forum is google searchable, so the more everbody whines/rejoices the larger the likelyhood that some beurocrat will stumble over our blatherings find a way to tax us for downloads. ;O)

On steam we already pay euros (pounds?) for dollars despite the weakness of the dollar...

[pcelt]

Blackcat-you may well choose to prefer to celebrate the fact that some people get away with it and to celebrate the anomalies in the treatment--thats your choice--but i would prefer to see a bit of fairness and justice applied to all the customers. re cost and time awaiting delivery.

But we have spent long enough debating and airing this issue--I intend to say no more about it . (sighs of relief from all forum members)

[Mattias]

The other cause for celebration is that even the bureaucrats in Brussels haven't worked out a way of taxing downloads yet (thanks to our American cousins telling them to feck off when they tried few years ago). So it is in fact our choice whether we chose to pay these impositions in the first place.

Ehm, I thought this was in place already. While waiting for CM:BN I contemplated buying a game from Matrix games and I distinctly remember changing my mind because of the 20-30% Vat. that was added in the end. And that was a download, to Sweden.

And I´m not 100% sure but isn´t it illegal in the UK to have stuff brought into the country without declaring it? I.e. those that have received the game without paying tax are now actually, actively by not acting, evading tax?

Oh, all the exciting aspects of this glorious hobby

M.

[Wego McPbem]

Don't forget about the people in London that reported being charged 40 quid extra. Thats just plain extortion. I think it was something to do with parcelforce?

Import tax is what it is, I didn't pay it this time but I've been hit by it before with other goods. The reason not everything gets hit is because they just don't have the manpower to check absolutely everything and if they did things would grind to a halt. It's pot luck basically.

[Lets_All_Fight]

Don't forget about the people in London that reported being charged 40 quid extra. Thats just plain extortion. I think it was something to do with parcelforce?

Import tax is what it is, I didn't pay it this time but I've been hit by it before with other goods. The reason not everything gets hit is because they just don't have the manpower to check absolutely everything. It's pot luck basically.

I've just got back from the collection office and I'm looking at the label just now. No import tax: the breakdown of the 17.90 is £9.90 VAT and an £8.00 handling fee. No import tax, no excise duty, just VAT and 'handling' by the post office. Except in my case is was a flat 20 note because the sods refused to give me change (they don't 'do' change apparently.)

It all went a bit Hulk after that for a minute but all that happened was I scared an old lady.

I've had quite a few high value packages from the states over the last few years without ever having had to pay anything extra. In fact, the one thing I've ever had to pay over and above for was a copy of 'The Operational Art of War' from about 10 years ago. I think the buggers have got it in for wargamers, lads. We'd better watch out!

[Doug Williams]

[Lets_All_Fight]

"They might take our 17.90 but they'll never take our 2.10 change - oh, they did."

[bulldogchurchill]

Just to help the understanding: import tax and VAT are the same thing. Both levied @ 20% in the UK. The logic goes: goods sold within the EU are subject to VAT. Goods exported from the EU are exempt from VAT (but subject to tax/duty by the receiving country). Goods imported to the EU are subject to zero tax by the country of export - which would give them a 20% price advantage over EU origin goods if they were not subjected to import tax/VAT upon arrival in the EU.

The import tax/VAT can be charged over the retail value of the goods plus the shipping charges. It it collected by the Post Office on behalf of the government. The Post Office will always levy a handling charge - the logic goes that contacting the recipient upfront to pay the tax immediately and avoid the post office having to pre-pay is just too time consuming and costly. Also, the adressee on the package may not be the ultimate payer of the import tax/VAT.

[Wego McPbem]

lol at "we don't do change" Typical. And thanks bulldog, was confused about that myself.

[Lets_All_Fight]

Just to help the understanding: import tax and VAT are the same thing. Both levied @ 20% in the UK. The logic goes: goods sold within the EU are subject to VAT. Goods exported from the EU are exempt from VAT (but subject to tax/duty by the receiving country). Goods imported to the EU are subject to zero tax by the country of export - which would give them a 20% price advantage over EU origin goods if they were not subjected to import tax/VAT upon arrival in the EU.

The import tax/VAT can be charged over the retail value of the goods plus the shipping charges. It it collected by the Post Office on behalf of the government. The Post Office will always levy a handling charge - the logic goes that contacting the recipient upfront to pay the tax immediately and avoid the post office having to pre-pay is just too time consuming and costly. Also, the adressee on the package may not be the ultimate payer of the import tax/VAT.

Pfft, tax grog.

[Battlefront.com]

I'm glad it finally arrived, pcelt. Ironic that you guys experienced poorer delivery times as a result of having to pay the money. Talk about double punishment!

UK Border Agency

1)What is fair and just about a system where one group of customers receive their import free of any charge and another similar group of customers randomly selected are arbitrarily charged VAT

And also how can it be justified to take 20-30 days just to impose the charge before any delivery or information to those customers.

An enlightened, responsive legislative body would impose limitations on holding up deliveries. "If you can't process it within a day, you have to let it go through". This concept of sticking entire shipments off in the corner until someone can get to it is as inefficient as it is undesirable.

2)The "handling" charge ,I was told, was made because the Post Office paid the VAT and then had to reclaim it from us. But my point would be that we did not instruct the PO to pay our VAT --if we had been charged the VAT directly we could have paid it directly.

This is a tax without being called a tax. It's complete and utter "tosh".

You folks in the UK better be on the alert, because you might wind up having to pay a Fee for processing your water and sewer bills!

3) Finally, I should just like to make a deepfelt plea that the future CMBN modules are made available for European purchasers at the outset from Germany and not from America only.We really couldnt go through all this hassle,expense and unfairness re every new module.

Thanks in hope....

Unfortunately, economics is conspiring against people who want physical products. Economy of scale means we can't produce runs of product in two countries. We also can't afford to ship product from the US to the EU any more as the costs are high and if you think you guys have had problems with Customs... well, let's just say we've had it worse (we were threatened with criminal charges until we proved they had their facts wrong). So the policy of shipping preorders out of the US will, and must, continue. After that time period we do ship out of Germany, so for EU customers who want to avoid this sort of Customs nonsense... just wait until after we start shipping.

This hassle with the UK is unique and it is very, very new. Some internal policy was changed very recently, so it's taken us by surprise. Obviously we can't proactively keep on top of what each country's Customs departments are doing, so we have to be reactive after the fact. We are going to warn UK customers VERY CLEARLY about the risks of placing a preorder. Nobody wants you guys to have a bad ordering experience, least of all us.

Steve

[dieseltaylor]

Its not new changes in the UK. I wrote months before the game was released about the way it operated. And that is why I ordered three games at once as it saved £16.00 in handling fees if still getting caught for the tax of £30.

I suspect within an hours drive of me there are at least a dozen players who paid full whack for the game , then full VAT and the £8 handling feee. Jowever the amount borders on the two small to get really worked up about but sufficient to be irritating,

What is daft is the manual - being printed matter is VAT free. And I bet a pound to the penny it was the most expensive part of the special edition.

BTW I still wish to know whose smart idea it was for the colour scheme for the manual. I always think people should get the full credit for ideas which arouse so much feeling.

[sandy]

It's not new - I have suffered this for years - it's just that there was a time when BF would look after their customers by not putting a high value on the package (as many other small US retail outfits/eBayers etc that I patronise will do if asked politely).

Otherwise it's pay extra for extra delay...which is exactly what I expected and suffered, and contacted you in advance with a request to avoid please avoid it by reducing the declared cost.

"So the policy of shipping preorders out of the US will, and must, continue"

Thanks, again, for listening to your customers...I guess I just don't get it.

I also do not understand why the declared value cannot be the difference between the download price and the hardgoods price, which is anyway the true cost of the physical goods? This would be legal and help your customers; think about it please.

I preordered to get the manual (nearly unreadable, and using a home printed version) and to support BF - some reciprocity would be appreciated.

[John Malcolm]

I'm not at all sure what the UK Border Agency has to do with anything. Their main task is making sure people who enter the country are doing so legally. The only customs related task they are responsible for AFAIK is making sure what is brought in by private individuals is legal and that the appropriate VAT tax or duty is paid. In other words, they would only be the relevent agency if you flew over to North America, bought something and flew back with it.

It's HM Revenue & Customs you have a problem with.

I was lucky in that my copy was simply forced through my letterbox by the postie. I think Battlefront could have eased the burden on those who did have to pay by not putting the value of the whole Download AND hardcopy price on the declaration. This could have been as simple as deducting the download only price from the total $80.

People who pre-ordered the steelbox and got the download were playing the game long before the hard copy arrived. In my case the hardcopy DVD hasn't even been out of the box. I bought the hardcopy for three reasons: I like limited edition boxed software, I like having something to read that I don't print out myself, and, I like supporting Battlefront.

[bulldogchurchill]

I think John Malcolm gives a correct summary of the issue. Only remark from my side - for HM Revenue & Customs purposes, Battlefront are obliged to provide a copy of the original sales receipt. They should not "doctor" the invoice by removing the download element, as the sale to the client was an integral hard copy and download product. HMRC are entitled to charge import tax/VAT on the entire transaction.

The charging of import tax is not limited to the UK - it applies throughout the EU. Seems the UK has been especially "vigilent" on this. I live in The NEtherlands, and did not have to pay. I suspect the UK "vigilence" is the product of two reasons:

1. I think the UK is probably Battlefront's third largest market after the US and Canada. I suspect there was a lot of shipemnts arrive at the Royal Mail office of exchange on the same day(s).

2. The steelbox probably attracted increased attention. If the cd had shipped in a normal plastic case, probably HMRC and the Royal Mail would have turned a blind eye. But, we all ordered the steel box precisely because it was NOT a regular plastic case, right??!!

I just checked my pre-order invoice. Battlefront have applied no VAT or GST. So, we all got the pre-order without VAT. Some people then got charged upon receipt of goods, and some got lucky. Battlefront have acted absolutely correctly. If they had shipped from Germany, all customers would have been charged VAT. This way, some customers skipped it : ) Some got found out : (

[GraemeA]

This quote from HMRC:

"Some websites will offer to show a value on the Customs Declaration that's much lower than the actual price paid so that you don't have to pay duty and/or VAT when the goods enter the UK. This is wrong: if you're ordering goods over the Internet, it is in your own interest to make sure that the sender abroad makes a complete and accurate declaration. If no declaration is made, or the information is inaccurate, the package may be delayed whilst the UK Border Agency (UKBA) makes further enquiries, or in some cases the package and its contents may be seized and as the importer of the goods you will be liable for any charges."

Which suggests that the buyer could be hit by charges if the Border Agency did investigate. I'll bet their "further enquiries" would not come cheap.

[pcelt]

John Malcom--FYI--The charge on the delivery envelope states its source as the UK Border Agency,Mt Pleasant Parcel Dept,London.So we must presume that Agency is the body in overall responsibility for these charges and any correspondence re these charges is to be sent to that address. Thats what they have to do with it.......

[John Malcolm]

John Malcom--FYI--The charge on the delivery envelope states its source as the UK Border Agency,Mt Pleasant Parcel Dept,London.So we must presume that Agency is the body in overall responsibility for these charges and any correspondence re these charges is to be sent to that address. Thats what they have to do with it.......

Cheers... that was why I mentioned AFAIK. Which agency is in charge of these things, and the fact that the line is fairly blurred between UK Border Agency (a fairly new organisation) and HM Customs & Excise (parts of which date back to then stopping smugglers landing goods in the 18th century) might go some way to explaining the lack of consistency in charging. Add to that the fact that different companies seem to have been responsible for the actual delivery and we end up in a mess.

I suppose at the end of the day it's just the UK governments justification for squeezing a bit more money out of us. I get taxed on my income. I additionally pay National Insurance (another tax). Any money I make in my second freelance capacity is additionally taxed. When I finally get my hands on what's left of my money I am taxed for purchasing things (at 20%). I pay £1.30+ a litre of petrol, most of which is made up of tax (roughly $8.25USD a gallon if I've done my sums right). We also pay a local Council Tax and Road Tax.

[Battlefront.com]

I keep stating this, but it keeps getting lost or going over people's heads:

1. Out of the 12 years we've been shipping to the UK this "fee" problem only came up VERY recently. As in 2011. Or at least that's when it came to our attention. We didn't know if it was a one off problem or if it is a systemic method for the crown to offset it's domestic tax revenue problems. It is now apparently systemic.

2. It is against the law for us to screw around with the values. As has been posted in the last few posts, there is NO WIGGLE ROOM HERE!! All someone from HM Customs has to do is double check against our website and we're busted. The old days of flying under the radar ARE OVER.

3. We have been busted already. The EU threatened to shut down our Germany operations and impose massive fines on us which we would be obligated to pay. All to save our customers a couple of quid they are legally entitled to pay. WE WILL NOT PUT OUR BUSINESS AT LEGAL RISK.

4. Duties are more-or-less an issue on a country by country basis. From our experiences with CM:BN's ship out it seems the UK is the only country in Europe where there's a substantial chance of getting hit. And since we have a ton of UK customers there's a ton of people getting hit.

5. The economics of producing product in both Europe and the US are no longer favorable. The number of people requesting physical goods drops each year and that means our ability to get good pricing also drops. We're working on some creative solutions to this, but they are part of bigger concepts which we have yet to work out the details.

6. The economics of shipping product from the US is no longer feasible. The shipping costs are astronomical, we get whacked VAT on the receiving end, and Customs doesn't necessarily rush things. We had some product held up for several months. Since we can not predict how long Customs will hold our stuff, and we can't ship until they do, sending product to our Germany is no longer viable.

7. As a result of all these things, as far as we can tell preorders will ship from the US into the future. We will do a much better job of notifying customers, especially the poor sods in the UK, of this fact and what it might mean to them. What the customer does in response to this information is up to them, obviously.

If people still have questions I can't understand why. This topic has been beaten to death and the variables are all outside of our control. We adapt as best we can to the changing landscape, but at some point we have to remind ourselves that we are in the business of making wargames NOT making bits of paper stuck into bits of plastic. It's very tempting to do away with physical product of all types, but we know you guys aren't ready for that yet. But you have to be reasonable and understand that we have very little room to maneuver.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

As evidence of what I said above, Martin just reminded me that we shipped Theater of War product to Germany and Customs held onto it for 3 months. THREE MONTHS. Then they released it for delivery. But to our German address? No, back to the United States. How happy would you be to have waited 4 months post release for your preordered item only to have it shipped out of the US anyway?

Steve

[TheVulture]

Reading the various threads of the amount of fun UK people have had with HMC&R I'm glad that I cancelled my pre-order now and went with the download only option. I'd have effectively been paying an extra £40 to get a box and a manual. For that price I can print out my own copy of the manual, but a box to put it in, and have change from the £40.

I'd like to take the opportunity to thank BFC for allowing UK customers to cancel the pre-order once news started to get around about the kind of charges we'd be facing. They've gone above and beyond the call of duty to provide good service for customers in this regard, and aren't responsible for the idiosyncracies and extortions of UK customs and postage.